So, what happened now?
Has the US withdrawn from Iraq?
Or has the war that caused the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis ended?
Who gained what?
It’s a story that has become a classic: childhood memories told in the words, ‘I can’t forget the days when I slept in the shoes I was given for the holidays as a child...’ New clothes bought for religious holidays, and shoes to match those clothes, are almost sacred to people who live in this part of the world and believe in Islam. That’s because people who live in this part of the world know how to be happy with little. There are no big things in their poor lives!
Sometimes I can’t help admiring the US, thinking, ‘What kind of psychological analysis is this?’ With its films, the US can prepare the world for whatever it wants and shape societies’ agendas as it sees fit. With its latest psychological bomb, it has managed to ease, at least somewhat, the anger directed at it in the Middle East! Should we say, ‘Well, hats off to them,’ or what?
Here’s what the article that caught my eye on www.kibrispostasi.com says at the outset: _“Support for Ezzeydi, who threw a shoe at the US president, is growing like an avalanche. In fact, a charity in Libya will award Ezzeydi a medal for bravery... Support continues for the journalist who became a national hero overnight after throwing a shoe at US President Bush.”_ The incident in which Iraqi journalist Muntazır Ezzeydi threw a shoe at Bush, who will hand over the presidency in the very near future, is one of the world’s most important topics these days. Neither the global financial crisis nor the wars in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq—the country where the incident took place—is in the headlines. The only thing being talked about is the shoes Ezzeydi threw at the US president!
As the world’s media examines the matter in depth and offers assessments of the profound meaning behind the shoe-throwing, it continues to serve efforts that began with Obama’s election to promote an image of the US as charming—though actually weak—and opposed to war…
Hey, folks!
You can throw the first shoe at the US president, but they won’t let you throw a second one at him… So why did they let it happen? Bush must be the least popular US president in the world. Isn’t he the man who turned the world into a bloodbath with his aggressive behavior and hawkish policies, and ultimately made the US the world’s least popular country—the man who had a shoe thrown at him in Iraq? Can all of Bush’s mistakes be forgotten because of one shoe? It seems they have been! At least the angry ones are enjoying the happiness brought by the shoe… So, what happens now? Thanks to the shoe incident, a major public relations campaign for the peoples of the world as they get ready for Obama, the US is sending the message that it may make some changes to its image in the eyes of the Middle East and the world by making a laughingstock of itself. Being ‘made a laughingstock’ is nothing new for the US, either! After all, none of the reasons the US gave for invading Iraq proved to be true. In the end, Bush is leaving the place he entered as a laughingstock as a laughingstock.
The result: Through the shoe-themed psychological bomb its public relations experts have prepared for people in this part of the world, who know how to be happy with little, the US is trying to leave Obama with a defused Middle East and world. In a way, they’re succeeding! Until Tuesday, I hope…
Please pay attention to your surroundings, and please be courteous in traffic.